Stablecoins Outperform Crypto Market Despite Trillion-Dollar Loss

The crypto market has lost $2 trillion since last October, but stablecoin holders have continued to grow. The number of USDT and USDC holders increased by over 14% to 240 million during this period.

This growth suggests that the traditional measures of adoption, such as price, market capitalization, transaction volume, and wallet growth, may not be accurate indicators of crypto's progress. Instead, stablecoin ownership could be a stronger sign of adoption, especially since these assets are being used for everyday payments like invoices, payroll, and merchant transactions.

Gross stablecoin transfers increased from an estimated $12 billion in the first quarter of 2020 to $316 billion in the first quarter of 2025. This growth shows how quickly people adopt new payment rails when existing systems are slow, expensive, or difficult to access.